If you’re lucky enough to run a Business to Consumer (B2C) Company, you’re lucky enough to develop personalized social media B2C marketing strategies.
Daunting? A little.
But does this allow for creative expression? Absolutely.
Social media B2C marketing strategies are your company’s legitimate excuse to execute your creative vices. Unlike B2B marketing, where you have to align your language to industry expectations, B2C marketing allows you to speak directly to your customer.
Social media was designed to showcase the personality behind a brand– the “who” behind your business. It is the only marketing avenue that is designed by your consumers, for your consumers and for their interests. Use it to find the customers that share yours!
Once you have found the social media platform that works best for your niche, you can conquer your market online.
Not sure where to start? The chart below, from AddThis.com, breaks down the strengths of each platform pretty well.
No matter your platform of choice, it is your social media manager’s job to ensure engagement that will not only prompt interest but relay the “who” of your company.
How do they achieve this goal? We reached out to 11 industry experts for their social media B2C marketing strategies. Here is what they had to say:
1. Put content first.
Thomas Jelneck, President and CEO of On Target Web Solutions, Inc.
“Very important consideration: you have to pay to play. If a business is particularly visual, I’d probably gravitate toward investing more money and time on Instagram. Attractive photos and useful and engaging hashtags can help increase visibility on individual posts for Instagram.
The greatest success that we have seen is content creation. Infographics and videos offer compelling content. A well thought out editorial calendar and content plan can help yield leads over time.”
For example:
Physicians Weight Loss has to make their content stand out on social media. By using similar fonts and colors, they make their images brand-unified. Each image is also careful designed to represent healthy living, the realization of weight loss goals and messages of inspiration.
2. Show off what your company is doing.
Zac Halloran, Founder of Twill
“We always put being authentic first. You have to connect with your customers and readers, so be real – just like they are.
For Twill, where every product purchased, another is given to a local friend in need, we thrive on authentic content. Our content on Instagram and Snapchat shows our live drop-offs of blankets to local organizations in our community, so customers really see how they are helping give back.”
3. Make your customers want to buy your product.
Marvin Beckmann, Social Marketing Expert
Which platform is best for conversions? Instagram? Twitter? Facebook? According to Beckmann, the answer to this question depends entirely on your target consumer.
“Generally speaking, Facebook Ads is still the way to go for B2B. By gathering Pixel data with Facebook ads you can also reach People more effective on Instagram with your ads.
[For B2C] by using influencer marketing strategies, conversions will rise. A recommendation from another human being (maybe even one we admire) has a higher priority for the human brain than a normal picture ad. These type of ads work well on Instagram and Snapchat for the B2C market if presented in a natural and personal environment, but if done right can also work well for companies.”
For example: Dollar Shave Club reached out to YouTuber Matt Stonie, who has over 2 Million subscribers to his channel, talk about their product in the beginning of his “50 Donut Challenge” video.
4. Invite your customer in on your business.
Albizu Garcia, CEO and Co-Founder of GAIN
“Co-creation is not about trying to come up with the cleverest marketing tactic. It’s about your brand and your customers creating value together. For example, collaborating with your fans during your creative process, or product ideation phase, is an excellent way to reduce risk when bringing new ideas to market.”
By now we have all seen Lay’s million dollar “Do Us a Flavor” contest. Not only do these semi-regular competitions promote interaction directly from customers. They give even more customers the opportunity to voice their opinions by buying and reviewing a flavor.
Engage with customers long before you launch a new product or service. These collaborative marketing tactics are great fuel for meaningful interactions with the people who matter most – your consumers.
5. Get followers by creating conversations.
Matt Hensler, Founder of Hensler Integrated Marketing
“Social media is a great starting point for consumers to be acknowledged, but it is always best for businesses to take customer questions or concerns to a private conversation – whether that is a direct message, email or phone call. Twitter is a great customer service tool, especially for larger brands that have constant needs for customer interactions… Engagement is the #1 technique to convert their followers.”
Norah by Earth is a specialized dog shampoo that uses Twitter to reach out to other dog lovers: rescues, therapy dogs, and even international dogs. By commenting on other users’ posts, Norah by Earth creates a stronger presence online, and their customers take notice!
6. Build an interactive community.
Michael Johnston, Group Sales and Strategy Manager from Schrole Group
“We use social media for increasing the amount of teaching candidates that go through our system to our schools.
We did this by creating an open community for teachers to reach out to each other. Through research you we were told that most international teachers teaching around the world felt isolated….so we created a community on Facebook that they could then use. It is helpful to us because it gives us a pretty large distribution when we do need to market to teachers.
Also it allows us to slowly help our teachers learn about the new ways that recruitment can work, we can show them that they do not have to pay massive recruitment fees, attend job fairs, etc.”
7. Create an RSVP event.
Sarah Nelson, Senior Account Manager from StayListed
“Hosting events are the quickest way to convert clients from social media.
Events can be really simple. For example; a pet market would create a Facebook event titled “Celebrate Your Best Furrriend”, “National Cat Day”, “Doggie Nutrition Extravaganza”. They would notate small discounts in the event… 5% off dog food, etc. And promote the event by sharing it, tweeting it, etc.
There are a couple reasons why this method works.
• Events share easily across social media. If someone shows interest in an event, it gets posted to their wall and seen by others. They also come up on friends, and friends of friends, event feeds. The person who showed interest doesn’t need to manually share anything.
• People actually do want to share events. No one wants to go to an event on their own. Even if it’s something as simple as going to a store to take advantage of a sale.”
8. Take customers behind the scenes.
Slisha Kankariya, Coufounder of Four Mine
“We use social media to provide behind the scenes looks at how our jewelry is crafted, how our company is growing and sneak peeks into how our company is growing and adding more products. This enables a customer to feel connected to the company on a more personal level, and connect on a personal level beyond what the traditional marketing can do. It also helps real people on our team connect with real customers.”
9. Turn incentives into subscriptions.
Vanessa Penagos- Pino, Director of Content and Inbound Marketing for 1800PetMeds
“Drive traffic to a dedicated landing page offering a discount or option to sign up and win something can help in gaining leads from these channels. Doing so also allows marketers to capture additional information about their prospects and most importantly, market to these leads later on.”
For example:
Daniel’s Lawn Service used shareable content (i.e. cute puppy photo) and paired that content with a clear incentive. They found a cute way to offer their customers a discount for leaving a review.
10. Repurpose reviews as content.
Victor Clarke, owner of Clarke, Inc.
“If you have a good testimonial from a customer, put the video on Facebook. Get online testimonials on your Twitter page because they are likely to be one of the things prospects who are checking you out will find. Instead of telling people how great your business is, let your customers do it.”
For example:
La Carraia Gelato, an Italian company opening their first location in the U.S., shared their positive Italian reviews on their Orlando Facebook page. Now, every new follower will know how highly their gelato is rated by their Italian customers.
11. Reach your demographic through video.
Howie Zisser, Digital Marketing Associate from Matchnode
“The best B2C technique is using paid social promotion for videos. Videos help the consumer connect to the brand and help them form an identity and relationship with the brand. Videos can be used to create Facebook Custom Audiences based on those who watched 75%+ of the video. Then using that audience, you can retarget those people with additional information and value.”
For example:
Purina partnered with Buzzfeed to promote healthy dieting and taking on the responsibilities of having a dog. Their video does two things: 1. It promotes their product. 2. It helps them reinforce the way they define their brand – a company that loves dogs and promotes their proper care.
Bottom line?
When developing your social B2C social media marketing strategies for 2017, make sure the “who” of your company is consistently and accurately represented. Also, whenever possible, involve your customers in the content, the reviews and in the incentives you offer. Get your customers involved and you will see your engagement and your conversion numbers rise!
Remember, what you say is who you are. Get socializing!
